Nottingham City Council reduces gender pay gap to 2.9%

Nottingham City Council continues to be one of the few employers to pay women on average what men working for the authority are paid, according to latest figures.

Across the whole council, women on average earn just over 97p for every pound earned by a male colleague – a mean average pay gap of 2.9%. This is an improvement on last year when the gap stood at 3.3%. Meanwhile for middle earners, men and women continue to be paid the same.

“This is a positive reflection on the council’s approach, which we will build on to ensure that we advance gender equality and inclusion and are taking steps to help maintain representation of women in leadership at the most senior level,” said the council’s Chief Executive, Mel Barrett. “I want Nottingham City Council to be a sector leader in inclusive practise and I’m pleased that we are also making similar strides towards addressing any pay gaps between staff with disabilities or from different ethnic backgrounds compared with the rest of the workforce.”

The council has introduced terms and conditions and simplified its pay structure which enables employees to move to the top of their grade within two years of employment.

The council operates a number of family friendly policies for staff, including childcare vouchers and flexible working arrangements, as well as carrying out training and development programmes around unconscious bias and recruitment procedures to ensure opportunities and processes are fair. The council is continuing to improve workforce planning to encourage increasing the numbers of women in senior roles, along with further development of existing coaching and mentoring schemes.

The latest report on the gender pay gap is a snapshot of pay from 31 March 2020, when the gender split at the council was 40% male and 60% female. The council’s Cabinet is also made up predominantly of female executive councillors for the first time, while over half of all Nottingham City councillors are women.